What Boys Do
by Nizan164
Summary: I found this fic on the internet and it's realy good! but it's unfinished so mybe you can help me with that... :)


**What Boys Do**  
**Fandom:**: _NaPolA_ (or _Before the Fall_ in the US)  
**Pairing:** Friedrich Weimar x Albrecht Stein (Actors: Max Riemelt x Tom Schilling)  
**Rating:** R, lime, slash, language

Summary: You can't make sense of _quite_ everything at this age. You can't even understand why your best friend makes your heart race or why your father hates you. You couldn't kill a mouse if it were the last thing to eat on earth. Yet, you're expected to rule the world? Albrecht doesn't get it. Albrecht doesn't get a lot of things.

Author's Notes: I don't do romance, remember? But the boys of NaPolA were so irresistable. So here goes. By the way, this isn't beta-read: so if you're a picky-pocky grammar Nazi, I don't want to fucking hear it. At the moment, English is _not_ my biggest priority language wise; German is, and the rules are different and tend to creep into my English at times, making me forget my native grammar. So please, be considerate.

By the way: I didn't finish this. And I really hate myself for it.

_**Ganz Nett**_

It could be said that a cadet's life-or the life of a Nazi child in general-is punctuated by gradual revelations of one's worth and dues to his country and people, in odd sporadic bursts of light and inspirational epiphany. Often, he is compelled to pull his companion to the side and share with him the secrets of his newfound understanding, speaking frantically with his hands while his comrade smiles and nods, saying "ahhh..." as if the revelation sparked the same awe in him as well. It was what happened when a Napola student suddenly wakes up and realizes that, all though he'd said these things thousands of times before, involuntarily, he really _would_ give his life for the Führer and the Fatherland; that Jews really _did_ deserve to be despised and expelled, and that his single best comrade in arms meant more to him than just a warm body to press against in a winter trench; a correct paper to look off on in physics class; a second opinion to ignored and underappreciated, unwanted aesthetics.

Albrecht came to the most uncanny epiphany in late fall, when the last leaves, tinged crimson, wilted form their parent branches and scattered across the grounds-like mangled and mauled bodies of the dead and wounded after a battle-to be raked up into piles and burned by he and his fellow _Jungmänner_. He felt that he should be horrified by it, disgusted, reviled-as his father would be..

He was staring out of the window in the corner of the bathroom, puzzling over why an ignorant boxer from the industrial slums-always eager to please, always impressionable, always smiling and _meaning it-_could possibly be more interested in his writing than some of Germany's most intelligent men. The injustice of it all. How one such person could cast a spell over the staff with his vicious need to succeed, yet melt one's face with the hightening of his cheeks and the flash of his teeth. The injustice.

Perhaps it was that reason why, at first, he had been drawn to him. Perhaps he could draw some of that strength, some of that perfection, some of that mindlessness that his dad wanted from him.

But, what a horrible thing to think. Friedrich was not mindless.

Just naïve.

Sickeningly so.

Or, Albrecht thought, perhaps it was _he_ who was naïve. Here was he, attempting to bring humanity to a world that had lost its fucking mind. Looking for beauty in heaps of coagulated blood, frightened corpses and near sexual glorification of killing. Falling in love when there was a war to be fought. And won. People to be murdered and shoved into unmarked graves. Women to be raped and nailed onto doors. Pfft. Poor Friedrich means only to survive.

Albrecht, on the other hand...

Well, there's no purpose in living in such a world that would easily strip from him two things that mattered: his humanity, giving him the ability to write with vain fervor, and Friedrich.

And Friedrich.

There simply is no describing how he felt as he watched Friedrich sit in the desk across from him, reading his _work (that's what he called it)_ as he slaved over _Der Jungmänn_. And he knew Friedrich was_reading_, because he watched his brow twist when he read a word possessing cacophony and contort whenever his eyes passed over something he hadn't known, a perspective he had never seen from.

Well, he read more of his work that day of his epiphany. And because of the result, Albrecht was in the bathroom, staring from the castle, biting his thumbnail.

They were in the press room earlier. The sun had set wonderfully and was giving way to some magical pigment of cerulean that Albrecht had seen in one of the paintings "left behind" in his house. Lights out in perhaps an hour, fourty five minutes even. Friedrich had proclaimed the work of Albrecht's in his hands to be that of a genius's.

"This," he said, starting slowly, quietly. "...This is magnificent, Albrecht."

Albrecht had stopped typing.

"What?"

For the first few times, Friedrich had only given Albrecht vague opinions. "Ganz nett." "Sehr gut." "Sehr toll." It had made Albrecht happy that Friedrich even bothered to read them, but he secretly regarded Friedrich's opinion as third-class-after all, he was a dumb boxer from the slums. What the hell did he know about writing?

"I've read it over three, maybe four times."

Albrecht's heart raced. It jumped into his throat and bled into his cheeks, painting them pink.

"I've learned more in your writing than I do in sociology class," he said. He then proceeded to do what Albrecht had been dying to hear from someone since he began to write.

Friedrich flipped through the pages, showing him lines, paragraphs, diction, devices-all things that characerized the importance of aesthetics in the Nazi regime to preserving the identity of Germany, and overall, humanity.

It was a shame that Albrecht didn't pay more attention to Friedrich's compliments. Instead, he focused on Friedrich's face-the sincerity in his fifteen-grade eyes and the plump, red mouth from which nourishing words of praise that Albrecht starved for-yet could not hear-poured from. His calloused, large finger as it passed across words on the paper.

That was his epiphany. He wanted to pull Friedrich's face down and kiss him, call him a knight. Tell him that he loved him for slaying the dragon.

But he skipped the dragon-knight reference. Instead, when Friedrich was nearly two words from stopping his unbearable barrage of flattering words, Albrecht leaned upwards-nearly standing on his toes-and pressed his lips against his right cheek.

The contact stopped Friedrich instantly.

For a moment, they exchanged looks. Grade fifteen eyes and Grade fifteen eyes. Embarrassed, but not ashamed, Albrecht refused to look away. Friedrich was unreadable at times.

For a moment, Albrecht thought he was wrong about Friedrich. He thought that Friedrich's kind face would twist into a battle hungry snarl, like how it had in the ring before he nearly killed that kid, and he would pummel him to death, screaming the word "faggot."

For a moment, Albrecht thought of apologizing and never speaking to him again.

But Friedrich surprised him. Or didn't surprise him, since he had known it all along. Friedrich had compassion. Friedrich had a heart. Friedrich had his own mind. Friedrich..

...smiled, showing his lovely white teeth, and kissed Albrecht on the cheek in return, throwing an arm around his shoulder and pulling him close against him in that big-brother manner, smothering him with his masculinity and Aryan perfection.

Half-buried inbetween his bicep and pectoral muscles, Albrecht inhaled deeply the scent of Friedrich's starched uniform. It tried hard to cover up the smell of sweat from boxing practice, but strangely, Albrecht was glad that it didn't.


End file.
